LotR RotK Premiere Today In New Zealand

donnz writes "Things are getting a little out of hand in Wellington today. For those of you who have not spent the night sleeping on the sidewalk CityLink have been wiring up webcams all over the place. Keep up with all the news and links on Stuff.co.nz. Just to show we are twice blessed, the sun is shining."

WHAT!!!

[the_2nd_coming]

not fair. why not do a world wide release all at the same time?

Re:WHAT!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Now you know how everyone else (non-USian) feel...

Lucky I have SWAT on Xvid DVD-rip, despite a UK release date of Dec 4th.

Good for NZers

[NightWulf]

As I understand the people of NZ were more than gracious to the film crew. Also who can deny the lush beautiful landscapes that NZ provided. I think it's only fair they get to see the movie a few weeks before we do. On a side note, with the success of a more than excellent translation of LOTR by Jackson, anyone else hoping that one day he may do a King Arthur tale? Perhaps a Once and Future King trilogy?

Re:WHAT!!!

[meffie]

Because Peter is from Wellington, and wants to spotlight Wellington on the world stage as his way of thanking NZ.

Re:WHAT!!!

[old_unicorn]

Why shouldn't some country other than America get the first viewing, for once? Seems fair to me - it was made in NZ after all.

Re:Good for NZers

[old_unicorn]

Once and Future King - YES. The only book that always makes me cry, when Arthur stands up and explains to the hedgehog what it's all about. A brilliant book. There was a Walt Disny thing "Sword in the Stone" that was based in part of it, the lessons from merlin in the moat as a fish, etc, but there is so much more to the books.

Re:Using Linux and KDE

[Ryan Amos]

They don't use Windows because it's a lot harder to write programs and you're pretty much locked into MFC if you want to write anything reasonably complex. On Linux, you get easier access to hardware without having to worry if some of the "black boxes" in Windows are going to get fucked up by messing with certain things. I've said this before and I'll say it again: Windows is not better than Linux, nor is Linux better than Windows. If all you're doing is entering stuff into a spreadsheet and surfing the net, Windows is better. If you need to write a lot of custom applications and don't want to spend years doing it, Linux is the way to go. Different uses demand different tools, which is why Linux will probably never seriously crack the desktop market, but will be (is?) a force to be reckoned with in a lot of "middleware" applications.

Re:Big deal!

[Kenja]

So by "truly dedicated" you must mean unscrupulous little weasels who want to access others work without contributing anything of their own or reimbursing others for their time?

It all ways amazes me that people claiming to be "true fans" do whatever they can to ensure that there wont be any thing for them to pirate in the future.

I'm starting to think that the RIAA may have a point, that's a disturbing thought. Must get drunk now.

Feeling sorry for stuff.co.nz

[Anonymous Coward]

Do note New Zealanders pay a lot for internation bandwidth.

Re:Big deal!

[Anonymous Coward]

I had pirates of both FOTR ant TTT, saw them at the movies AND bought the DVD's. What possible fucking problem could the movie industry have with that? Of course these are films that I actually want to watch. I was given a bunch of 'blockbusting' VCD's by a friend, I've not watched any of them nor will I be bothering. Perhaps they can add that to their piracy stats, even if you give me the films I have better things to do than watch the garbage.

Re:Sooo .... Are the Saruman Scenes In?

[Brandybuck]

No, the Saruman scenes will not be in there. You wasted your signature on a petulant protest. So stay home on opening day. That way the line will be just a bit shorter for the rest of us.

Re:Oh get a grip!

[phantumstranger]

its sick amoral greed when that profit ends up being 40000%

No, it's people BUYING products that drive profits up. I'm tired of people blaming companies for trying to make money instead of treating all these customers like the lemmings they are for buying into whatever is out there.

Re:Using Linux and KDE

[msevior]

*sigh* why do people who seem to understand things say this sort of thing. Nothing is static. In fact if all you're doing is entering numbers in a spreadsheet Linux is probally a *better* solution for the desktop.

Linux loses to Windows on the desktop in the *range* of apps that is available and in the *range* of hardware that's available.

Linux is not useful to Windows Geeks who inhabit slashdot because it doesn't have all the cool hardware support provided by leading edge hardware supplier. Still there is lots of cool hardware that *does* work well with Linux.

Linux loses on the 20% of corp desktops that need a range of sophisticated apps. It loses in the consumer market because it doesn't come pre-configured and Johnny -down-the-street who maintains Joe-blows Windows box doesn't know Linux yet.

Once a beachhead on corp desktop is established for 80% of machines that just do routine things, other opportunities will become available.

KDE or GNOME are both excellent desktop environments.

Re:WHAT!!!

[laura20]

By that logic, there aren't any indigenous people in the world, except for in Kenya. They are indigenous by the same standards as the aborigines: they were the first to get to a place and stay there.

Re:LOTR Saturation

[MtViewGuy]

New Zealand has all the right to be very proud of Peter Jackson's magnum opus.

After all, we are talking perhaps the most expensive and complex project in the history of motion pictures, one that would have cost 70 to 100 percent more if it had been done in the USA or the UK. The fact just the box office revenues from The Fellowship of the Ring more than covered the cost of the entire project (and then some! =) ) means New Zealand should be proud to be the place where one of the most profitable movie projects in history was made.

Re:New respect for TTT

[nagora]

And now that I've heard the screenwriter's/director's side of the story, instead of just /. ravings, I have to admit that they probably made the right decisions.

Err, the screenwriter's/directors side of the story was on the screen. If their reasons have to be clarified by a commentary then they were the wrong reasons. This is a movie, not a seminar.

TWW

Re:New respect for TTT

[blancolioni]

Answer 1: The movies were based on the book. The movies did certain things differently. It was interesting to find out why.

Answer 2: The movies were not seminars, but the commentary tracks sort of were. Hence, a seminar-like approach was appropriate.

Answer 3: Making a movie requires thousands of individual decisions, each of which can be individually justified (or not) without crossing the line from movie to seminar.

Re:New respect for TTT

[nagora]

The main problems with Osgiliath were that Frodo shows the ring to a nazgul who doesn't then have the entire contents of Mordor emptied onto their heads (the ring being much more important than an attack some little city) and then, having seen Frodo almost throw the whole world away, Faramir decides that he was wrong not to let Frodo and Sam wander into the heart of Sauron's territory.

Osgiliath is idiot-plotting at its worst: it only works if you assume that everyone involved, Faramir, Frodo, the Nazgul, are idiots.

Plus, it achieved nothing else other than undermining Faramir's nobility and Frodo's intelligence. If Jackson wanted a scene in Osgiliath there's no reason he couldn't have simply had the camera/audience follow Faramir after the hobbits leave him. Why bother diverging from the book here? It didn't save screen time or budget and did nothing for the story, so why do it at all?

TWW